


maybe i'm a piece of art.

by paperclipbitch



Series: tick. tick. tick. [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: First Meetings, Gen, M/M, Original Universe, Prologue, i wasn't going to put this here but LJ is buggering about tonight
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-15
Updated: 2013-05-15
Packaged: 2017-12-12 00:09:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/804849
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paperclipbitch/pseuds/paperclipbitch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>A first meeting.</i>
</p>
<p>Nate is sitting on the floor in the hall when Wren opens the door again.  “Still not a drug dealer,” he says.</p>
            </blockquote>





	maybe i'm a piece of art.

**Author's Note:**

> This is a prelude to what I kind of view as the main story arc? I dunno, a random snippet. It probably evokes more questions than it answers, but, I'd like to write more of these bits and pieces.
> 
> I fancast them in the end (OF COURSE) so, erm, have Wren and Nate:
> 
>  
> 
> IDEK, tbh.

“Drug dealer,” Wren guesses.

It makes the man hammering on the door opposite freeze, turn around and screw up his face.

“Really?” he demands.

Wren waves a hand. “Leather jacket, bad mood, apparently no day job…”

“I think that’s probably prejudiced,” the man tells him, folding his arms across his chest. “And I’m wearing this jacket because it’s fucking February.”

Wren knows; his heating is glitching at the moment, and he’s wearing three different jumpers. He knows London cold inside out, but New York cold is something very different, and much more unpleasant than he was expecting. He shifts his weight a little, leaning his hip against the doorframe.

“Fair enough,” he allows. “They’ve gone out, by the way. In case you were planning on standing there and shouting for a while longer.”

The man sighs, kneading his eyes. “Of course they have.” He raises his head again a moment later. “And you think I’m their _drug dealer_?”

“Lee strikes me as the unpredictable type,” Wren says, adding: “I’ve only been their neighbour a couple of weeks.”

After a moment looking thoughtful, the man straightens up, offering a hand to Wren. “I’m Nate,” he says. “Nate Waters. I’m a friend of Lee and Eve’s, though apparently they’ve both decided to turn their phones off today.”

Nate has a firm handshake; he’s in need of a haircut and Wren can’t figure out if he’s trying to grow a scruffy beard or if he just hasn’t shaved for a few days, but his eyes are clear and his clothes are neat and clean. His smile twists a little at the corners.

“Wren Blakely,” Wren offers in return, already anticipating the lifted eyebrow.

“‘Wren’,” Nate echoes.

“My parents are passionate ornithologists,” Wren says, the explanation he’s given throughout his life, at least as soon as he was old enough to pronounce ‘ornithologist’.

“Your parents are cruel,” Nate observes, eyes glittering just a little.

It’s not the first time Wren’s heard this either. He’s heard pretty much every possible variation of _what the fuck your name is Wren_ over the years, though he’s always willing to hear something original.

“And yours are unimaginative,” Wren responds on a shrug, which makes Nate’s smile twist again.

“Something like that,” he agrees. “And you’re-” His phone chimes, and Nate flashes him a quick apologetic look before digging it out of his jeans and checking the screen. He sighs. “I am going to kill them when they get back here.” He looks up. “Not literally, by the way, suspicious neighbour.”

“I’ll have 999 in my phone ready,” Wren says, then catches himself and adds: “I mean 911.”

“I’ll bear that in mind,” Nate replies in an easy drawl, leaning back against the wall. 

It’s cold out in the hall, and Wren’s still not entirely sure what Nate is doing here or if he’s going to break in somewhere the minute he’s left unattended, but he’s expecting a Skype call from Archie sometime soon, and he’s got a new shipload of boxes to unpack.

“I’ll just… yeah,” he says, awkward, and Nate salutes him with two fingers to his temple as Wren closes the door.

He stands still for a moment, in his still-chilly apartment, resisting the urge to peer through the peephole in the door to see what Nate’s doing out there. His laptop sits there, damnably not ringing, and he’s unpacked so many things over the past weeks that that isn’t really appealing either.

Wren goes to put the kettle on.

Nate is sitting on the floor in the hall when Wren opens the door again. “Still not a drug dealer,” he says.

“Milk and/or sugar?” Wren asks.

Nate doesn’t even blink at the question, which means he probably _does_ know Lee, who can’t seem to go more than about eight minutes without making tea for anyone in the vicinity.

“Milk, two sugars,” he replies. “Thanks.”

Wren leaves his front door open as he goes back to the kitchen to spoon sugar into mugs and then bring them back to Nate. He hands a mug down and then eases himself to sit beside Nate on the cool concrete floor.

“Can’t you just come back later?” he asks. 

“It’s kind of important,” Nate replies, wrapping his hands around the mug. “So of course they turn their phones off. Because that’s what my girls do.”

Wren can’t help but be a little suspicious of the phrasing, given that Nate’s got to be at least ten years older than his neighbours, but Nate still isn’t coming across as creepily as the situation implies.

“Is Lee at work?” he suggests.

“Tried there already,” Nate sighs. “So I guess I’ll just have to sit here until they get back.”

Wren thinks about asking how Nate got into the building in the first place, but it probably isn’t that hard to wait until someone leaves and catch the door. People used to do it in Wren’s block of flats in London all the time.

Nate takes a sip of his tea and smiles, just slightly. “You just moved here?” he asks. When Wren nods, he adds: “you Brits and your tea. Lee gets her family to post her boxes and boxes of the stuff.”

“That’s because you guys can’t make it,” Wren replies, easy. Everyone said it to him before he left London: _you won’t be able to get a decent cup of tea over there_.

Nate rolls his eyes, steam spilling up into his face. “That’s an unfounded cliché,” he says, a soft twang to his accent that Wren hasn’t spent enough time in the states to place yet. Nothing that’s been used in a mainstream TV show, anyway. “Of course,” he adds, slumping a little more comfortably against the wall, “I’m more of a coffee man myself.”

Wren’s laptop still isn’t ringing; Archie’s punctual to the point of it being actually irritating, and something uneasy coils around his spine. They both thought they could manage long distance – it’s only for a while, after all – but the adjustment… it’s not easy, anyway. The distraction of a virtual stranger in his hallway is a welcome one, though he’ll never admit it.

“Coffee has a place,” he allows, blowing across the top of his tea to let the warmth rise up into his cheeks, “but it’s not the same.”

“’Bout as hardcore as I get these days,” Nate remarks, something unreadable in his smile, a story Wren hasn’t been told and isn’t going to ask about. “Misspent youth,” he adds, winking, easy charm sliding over the words.

Nate doesn’t look far out of whatever that youth was; he must be around Wren’s age, after all. “Architectural school,” Wren provides, making sure to sound self-deprecating. “I didn’t see daylight until… well, for a very long time.”

“That what you moved here to do?” Nate asks.

Wren nods; it’s easier to just do that than say how the job he starts next week is no better and no worse than the job he had in London, that this is supposed to be a fresh start for _two_ but he’s the advance guard, that he has no idea who even _made_ this decision anymore. He’s not ready to say any of this aloud yet, and anyway, it’s probably just doubts born of a late Skype call and no bloody heating.

He raises an enquiring eyebrow at Wren, who smiles sheepishly and says: “self-employed. Which is _not_ code for drug-dealer, because, _damn_ , I’d be able to afford better jeans than these if it was.”

“I’ve seen a _lot_ of _Law & Order_,” Wren tells him, unapologetic.

Nate laughs; it’s warm, and open, and is weirdly at odds with the sardonic twist to his mouth, the careful shielding in his eyes. Wren’s always been the shy one, the bookish one, and he’s not entirely sure what to do with himself when ending up in an impromptu tea party with a stranger whose every response seems to prompt more questions.

At least Lee and Eve seem more open, inviting him over for dinner, flat decorated in film posters, books and memorabilia spilling off their shelves. They’ve seemed an open book so far, twenty-year-olds living in a haze of forgetting to do laundry, living on ramen, and staying up half the night watching reality TV – something that came in handy when Wren was trying to shift his jetlag and not succumb to lonely homesickness at the same time – and he doesn’t know how to fit Nate into this picture.

Wren’s phone buzzes in his jeans pocket and he pulls it out to find a text from Lee – _TELL NATE TO UNTWIST HIS KNICKERS JFC_ – and another one a second later – _oh, hey, we should’ve introduced you – Nate, Wren, Wren, Nate, Nate’s our friend and totes not a creepy predator, his last bf was definitely older than him; Wren’s still adorably confused by the whole New York thing so we’re adopting him, feel free to become BFFs until we get back_ – and he feels himself grinning for no reason he can really name. Archie tells him that he needs to make friends in America, but Wren’s never been very good at putting himself out there, so the best he’s managed are his neighbours, women a decade younger than him, and a tentative nodding acquaintance with the admittedly attractive barista in the nearest Starbucks.

“Well, that’s helpful,” Nate murmurs to himself, rolling his eyes, when Wren mutely shows him the messages. “I guess you’re my new BFF then.” His tone is dry, his expression calmly incredulous.

“Apparently so,” Wren agrees.

Through the open door to his flat, he can hear his laptop ringing with a Skype call.

“You need to get that?” Nate asks, nodding towards the noise.

Wren shrugs, slumps a little more comfortably on the cold concrete. “Nah,” he says, “I can always call back later.”


End file.
